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I'll tell you an old story I heard from a friend of a sensei of my father.
A karateka, judoka, aikidoka and a gangster walking the same street. All wearing a gun.
At some particular moment, they start fighting.
Whatever martial arts knowledge they have, they all pull their gun and start shooting

Morale of the story: in a real fight, you just use whatever you have or know, to defend yourself as best as possible depending on the attack. An aikidoka that practiced karate before can aswel use karate techniques in a streetfight when it seems useful in his defence.

I would like to post on one of these threads for real. This thread is clearly a joke now. But I would like to discuss the usefulness of Aikido techniques in a real thread.

Oh, don't worry Chris. This isn't the only "does Aikido work" thread. There are tons of them. I wouldn't bother to start a new one. Why would it be any different than the old ones? Everyone who actually knew anything and had something to say did so a long time ago and now ignores these threads like the plague. These threads are like the zombies that never die.

Look at the number of views... A thread that might have had some depth, like the one about offensive moves in Aikido will pretty much fade away after a couple of thousand views. Only a few people have much to say about it. Something about the spiritual side of the art will be over in under a thousand, if it's an interesting one. But talk about Aikido and fighting, combat, self defense, vs MMA, vs barbie dolls and we get over 170.000 views! And this is only one of these threads! It's so depressing, I can't tell you.

Feel free to post whatever you want here... if you don't someone else will. You could make it your personal mission to attempt to raise the tone a bit... good luck. But there's no need for another thread of this type. Please spare us.

DOH! I thought I was the only one that got into aikido to defend myself from Barbies .... zombie Barbies - totally terrorizing. 2012 is just around the corner and there will be great herds of zombie Barbies running around then so I hope y'all are ready!

"In my opinion, the time of spreading aikido to the world is finished; now we have to focus on quality." Yamada Yoshimitsu

Though there are many paths
At the foot of the mountain
All those who reach the top
See the same moon.

This is an extremely controversial question and has generated much heated debate in forums such as the rec.martial-arts newsgroup. The answer to this question is very subjective - students of any particular martial art tend to favor that one over any other (otherwise they would probably be studying the other martial art). There are many different but equally valid reasons for studying any martial art, such as for self defence, for spiritual growth or enlightenment, for general physical health, for self-confidence and more. Different martial arts, and even different styles within a particular martial art, emphasize different aspects. Hence 'better' really depends on what it is you want out of a martial art. Even given this distinction, it is still a very subjective question so perhaps a better one would be 'Is Aikido better than any other martial art *for me*?' This can only be answered by the individual asking the question. The rest of this FAQ may help you in some way towards finding that answer. An alternative way to answer this question is to simply say, 'No, Aikido is not 'better' or 'worse' than any other martial art. It is simply different.'

I'm actually really sick of these "is Aikido 4 realz!" threads.
There are like 5 million of these threads. And they conversation always disintegrates to absurdity.
Everything that can be said about it has been said... I mean seriously, this thread is 58 pages long by itself. And there are dozen more threads just like this one floating around on this site. pfff

I'm actually really sick of these "is Aikido 4 realz!" threads.
There are like 5 million of these threads. And they conversation always disintegrates to absurdity.
Everything that can be said about it has been said... I mean seriously, this thread is 58 pages long by itself. And there are dozen more threads just like this one floating around on this site. pfff

I'm actually really sick of these "is Aikido 4 realz!" threads.There are like 5 million of these threads. And they conversation always disintegrates to absurdity.
Everything that can be said about it has been said... I mean seriously, this thread is 58 pages long by itself. And there are dozen more threads just like this one floating around on this site. pfff

Yes it does...No it doesn't...
Yes it does...No it doesn't...Yes it does...No it doesn't...
Yes it does...No it doesn't...Yes it does...No it doesn't...
Yes it does...No it doesn't...Yes it does...No it doesn't...
Yes it does...No it doesn't...Yes it does...No it doesn't...
Yes it does...No it doesn't...

I feel like the responses to ~joeysola~ are rather...deliberate and violent, almost.

I can see where he is coming from, in the ideas of doubting a martial art.
I have been training in Aikido for only about 5.5 months.
To me, being the only art I have trained in, it's the best! I would never doubt it. Then I look at some of the techniques, and decide that

It's the one with the most coordination and movement.
No martial art is going to garuntee you get better at either one,
but Aikido focuses on improving both.

So try Aikido for a while, so you can experience the techniques on your own.

I felt Aikido was empty of usefulness at first, but then I started thinking:

If I threw a punch, the defender/attacker would more than likely - A. Grab my wrist or B. Dodge it

If he grabs my wrist, I can immediately go to nikyo, ikkyo, etc.
If he dodges, I can follow with another punch

In simpler words, Aikido, to me, is an amazing art that should be applied in fights, not used solely on the certain specific techniques you learn.

Though only one enemy calls you out
Be on your best guard.
To deal with one adversary in the spirit of facing ten thousand
Is the Way of the Warrior.

O'Sensei knew the answer, but I'm afraid the technique is long lost. You see, there is a story that when O'Sensei was homesteading in Hokkaido, he met a monk who was a master of many arts, including pumkin carving knife jitsu. Before returning to meditate in the mountains he passed the secret teachings to O'Sensei. However, O'Sensei never taught any of his students the way of pumpkin carving because the monk's main art was Daito Ryu and he didn't want to be seen as JUST a DR teacher. And thus we are defenseless against the Great Pumpkin.....

BTW. This thread necromancy is because Halloween is approaching, isn't it?

Believe it or not, it was reopened as a veiled insult against me. Ironically, I've heard that Aikido and Ninjitsu were the two LEAST effective forms of martial combat. Aikido is almost solely a defense based art, whereas Ninjitsu is primarily offensive (assassination techniques). But I think both art forms would be open to the other, provided there was necessity in using the other's moves.